Warring state Senate Democrats erupt in race debate

Updated 7:23 am, Thursday, March 16, 2017

Casey Seiler, Times Union

Media: Albany Times Union US

Albany

Simmering tensions among Democratic members of the state Senate exploded Wednesday afternoon as Marisol Alcantara, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference, accused mainline Democratic Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris of exercising "white privilege" in criticizing the IDC.

The explosive arguments came as senators spoke on a resolution from the IDC outlining the conference's state budget priorities. Mainline Democrats were rubbed the wrong way by the IDC's ability to — for the first time in the breakaway conference's six-year existence — vote on their own one-house budget resolution, which amounts to a platform from which the spending plan will be negotiated.

The IDC's resolution ultimately failed, while the Republican majority's was adopted.

During the debate on the IDC plan, Gianaris charged that the resolution was "Republican lite" because of its similarities to the GOP's one-house budget resolution.

He noted that the Daily News had called the IDC "Donald Trump's New York Democrats."

Alcantara, a freshman lawmaker from upper Manhattan, said that Democrats and Republicans can both agree on the need for human decency.

"We can agree to disagree on issues, economic issues, my political views, your religious views, but when we start name-calling people, I have a problem," she said. "Sen. Gianaris called me and my colleagues Trump (Democrats). I would like to remind him that at the end of the day he's a white man with a degree from Harvard. And I refuse to have him use his white privilege to accuse me ... "

Gianaris interjected to cite Senate rules against personal attacks on another member. IDC Leader Jeff Klein then jumped in to say Gianaris had opened the door for such comments. Senior Republicans pleaded for decorum — but there was more rancor to come.

"I would like to know how many times my colleague has been called the N-word or a spic," Alcantara said when she was allowed to continue. "How many times has he been refused entry into any place? How many times has my colleague or any of his family members been stop-and-frisked?"

At that point, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan rose to make a personal appeal for everyone to cool down.

Alcantara eventually concluded that comparing her and her colleagues to Trump "is insulting since people like me that are immigrants, that are black are the ones most deeply affected by his policies."

When Gianaris was granted an opportunity to speak, he said Alcantara "frankly knows nothing about me."

"She doesn't know that my parents came to this country from Greece," he said. "She doesn't know that my father had his home literally burned to the ground by the Nazis and slept in the dirt, had to go to school barefoot for months at a time, had to live (through the) post-World War II depression in Greece. And he and my mother got themselves together and got over here as immigrants ... to make a life for themselves and to give me the opportunities that I have."

The fracas was the latest flare-up between the two Democratic factions.

The eight-member IDC has a coalition with the 32-member Senate Republican Majority. But the 22 members of the mainline Democratic Minority Conference (almost certain to be 23 members again when a vacant seat in Harlem is filled in May) contend that if the IDC and Sen. Simcha Felder — a Brooklyn Democrat who conferences with the GOP — united, they would be able to push a Democratic agenda in the Senate as a majority.

In the Assembly, debate was far more measured over the Democratic majority's one-house resolution.

As they head into negotiations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans are in agreement on agenda items such as a modification to Cuomo's free SUNY/CUNY college tuition proposal that removes a penalty for private colleges if they raise their annual tuitions more than $500 or exceed a national higher education inflation index (about 2.3 percent).

There also is apparent agreement — at least among legislators — on increasing funding for direct care providers to help increase workers' salaries. Both the Senate and Assembly included an additional $45 million in funding over Cuomo's proposal to help nonprofits raise wages.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Flanagan, Klein and Cuomo will hash out the final budget deal, which must be completed by April 1.

Talking to reporters, Heastie previewed the more cryptic phase of the "three men in a room" negotiating process.

"All of these things will be discussed and we'll see what happens," he said of various proposals. "Some make it. Some don't."